While I'm awaiting in anticipation for my The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition book to arrive through mail.
I'm wondering what is the book that had made a huge impact on your life? For me it was by far 4 Hour Work Week that had played a huge role in my life.
Which had shaped me in becoming a voracious reader of books. It had even allowed me to embark on the path of entrepreneurship & startups after more than a decade in reading it.
So what was the "book" that had made a huge impact on your life?
Oldest comments (61)
"On The Road" by Jack Kerouac, bar none.
So in what way did the book impacted you?
You just have to MEET Jack himself...
youtube.com/watch?v=3LLpNKo09Xk
This is from the 'Steve Allen' talk show, '59. Steve was a cool cat on the piano. This is Jack (two yrs after the release of the book) when he was still a 'good lookin' guy before he became a belligerent red-nosed drunk.
OTR regularly comes up as Top 100 American novels.
His poetry is beautiful. Mexico City Blues and Tristessa are lyrical. I would read parts aloud to myself to get the rhythms right. Probably did the same with OTR.
The book made me want to drive fast across the country...
Did you at least see the video?
Erm.. Not yet will watch it when I'm free.
Alright, I watch it. It was really cool in steve playing the piano while conducting an interview and I had the vibe of being a man of action through the poetry.
Yes, I think you are right. But he also had periods of meditation where he studied Buddhism.
"Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter.
Quick question what was the insights you had gotten from it?
I picked this book up in a thrift store back when I was in high school, and it was the first "technical" book I read of my own volition.
The book weaves together topics of mathematics, music, and art (among other things), establishing shared components and exploring the idea of emergence in cognition. Among the technical discussions are comical -- yet thought-provoking -- dialogues that explore the chapter's subject while making self-referential observations.
Though it's not meant to be seen as a guide to classical music, number theory, zen, or biology, it is responsible for introducing me to how interesting those subjects are, and my own interests in development projects stem from the idea of emergent behaviors. It's a fantastic (though somewhat dense) book, and I find myself reading it again every few years.
Nice that is really good :)
Right now I'm reading @daedtech 's book, and it's helping me to reconsider lots of things fast in my career!
amazon.com/Developer-Hegemony-Erik...
Hmm..would you care to share what is the insights you had gotten from it?
I will eventually make blog posts out of it.
In the meantime, this is a good starting point
Coders in the Hands of a Missing God: How Newly Minted Freelancers Badly Miss the Point
Great I had just followed you. I'll look forward to it.
Yeah, I'm definitely buying a copy soon. Erik's posts are always insightful.
Clean Architecture by Uncle Bob. It helped me focus on the SOLID principles and made me apply TDD more and more in my day job.
I'm currently reading The Pragmatic Programmer's new edition as well and it's really good so far.
I'm keeping short notes on every topic while reading it, on how I've experienced that topic so far, what to look out for, etc.
Nice I can't wait for it to arrive.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - many thoughtful insights on life, work, values, quality and how different people look at all that. It helped me understand that I’m not alone and I’m actually doing good.
Dam that is like the one of the popular philosophy book.
Yes, I loved that book too. I read it and wanted to buy a motorcycle right away. haha.
A motorcycle is a kind of symbol there) my laptop became my motorcycle)
Can there be a single book which influences a person for all his life? For me, multiple books have come in at various points of my life...
Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Howard Roark was a huge role model during my college days.
Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie. It kind of gave me a perspective shift.
Frank Herbert's Dune For the love of Sci-Fi it created in me. SFF has been my favorite genre since Dune.
Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper Bit Coin : A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - For the way it transformed an essentially ethical problem of Honesty into a computable one. Whoever Satoshi is... he is one of the most profound thinkers of our age.
Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens : Well, for scaring the s@#t out of me :)
I read Tuesdays with Morris and it was really a tear jerking experience.
Last year, I read The Four by Scott Galloway. This one book taught me so much about the big giants of our industry. How they tackled problems, what principles they used, how they started from nothing and impacted the world so much. I highly recommend this if you want to shift your focus from pure coding and want to know what happens in the real world.
Right now, I'm reading Hit Refresh by Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella. Totally enjoyed every page of it!
Haha he is really good.
One of the key bets they are doing is actually voice assistants that might be a gateway to AI Assistants that compliment with Human Intelligence.
Yes! They're so into IoT, AI/ML and cloud! Also, they're the ones behind the Q# - programming language dedicated to Quantum Computing!!!
Hello, Max! This is a great question!
The Highly Sensitive Persons Survival Guide, by Ted Zeff, has made a huge impact in my life. It made me understood how I was, why I was like that, and that there was nothing wrong with me.
It gave me lots of perspectives and exercises to create a safe space for me so I could control my stress and my reactions to external stimuli.
If you've even been told that you overreact, that you're too sensitive and you feel too nervous or anxious in this world full of stimuli we live on... Please consider this book and let it guide you and give you the first steps.
Hmmm...sounds really similar to Quiet by Susan Cain. I would check it out thanks for the suggestions
WOW. I have been thinking about it lately.
This is totally not tech related but "Stephen King's IT", really shaped my life. I used to be a fat boy until I read the book and I realize I was behaving like fat kids does, there is a pattern. I used to wear jackets even on summer just to cover my man-boobs. That was 10 years ago, now I am 12% body fat, with a six pack and doing ultra runs.
“He thought that fat boys were probably only allowed to love pretty girls inside. If he told anyone how he felt (not that he had anyone to tell), that person would probably laugh until he had a heart-attack.”
― Stephen King, It
Wow, that's really great. I recently read a book called "Can't Hurt Me By David Goggins".
Which is a bad ass that I believe is a really good read as well.
Fantastic book. Goggins is one scary dude!
Yeah he is I'm reading living with a seal. It's funny as hell with lot's of swear words.
Glad to hear it! I'll give that one a try sometime.
I read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People around 1995 and I think about it constantly. The main takeaway for me is in the first few habits. To paraphrase (1) Realize that you are in control of your actions (2) Decide your principles/goals (3) Prioritize your actions to accomplish them.
I always love the quote "You are master of your own ship, captain of your own soul"
C++ Primer my first book on programming. It was definitely one I thought will make me a genius. It worked... partially.
It was one of the greatest experiences, I was so committed to reading it.
Nice that makes me want to read that book as well.
The book that really made an impact for me was Nelson Mandela's A Long Walk to Freedom.
Not just because it's a fantastic story of struggle but it is also truly inspirational.
If a man can study law in a 6x6ft prison cell, then I can refactor that piece of code I've been avoiding.
That's really a awesome book. I heard about him through the autobiography from Richard Branson.
On how VirginActive was created on the behalf of saving a national chain from bankruptcy which Nelson Mandela approached to Sir Richard to take over and help save the business.
I think the book that had the biggest impact on me was the ZeroMQ guide.
zguide.zeromq.org/page:all
Not only did it really make me aware of distributed architecture, it also went into great depth about open source organizational hygiene. Can't recommend it enough.
It seems there are tons of puns nice!!!
:D
These two books have made a lot of impact in my developer career so far: Clean Code and The Art of Readable Code
Nice that is really cool. Clean code sort of recommended read for alot of developers.
A bit of spirituality: "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle, is one of the most life-changing books I've ever read. I've repeated parts of it 4-5 times. Life-changing perspectives and concepts we seem to be "unconscious" to (sticking with Eckhart's terminology).